Headstock drilling

G’day, it may have been covered but I am asking again, how do you go about drilling holes for machine heads in your blank headstock.

All the headstocks I've gotten have holes for the machine heads, but if I had to do it, I'd use a drill press.

The GSZ custom kit I got from FrankenWashie is undrilled.
I have to come up with a design and layout.

And decent, proper wood bits.

If you have any kind of graphics program like Illustrator or Inkscape, you can create a paper template to transfer to the headstock.
Actually you could probably find one online that would fit your needs and just print it out.

Further to what Matthew said, once you have your layout sorted, I use an appropriate sized forstner bit. Make sure to have a scrap piece of timber under the headstock to avoid tear-out when the bit passes through. And be sure both the headstock and scrap piece are well clamped.

Drill press is ideal, drill guide second best, freehand last resort.

Obviously the placement needs to be suitable for the tuners you are using, with them far enough apart so you have easy access to each tuner button, without keep hitting the ones either side. Once you've shaped your headstock, you could simply use one of those flexible bend curve rulers to draw a line that follows the edge of the headstock on each side the correct distance in for the centre of the tuner hole, and space the tuners at equal distance along that line. Just make sure you do this using the correct tuner orientation, with the anti-rotation screw facing the guitar body (if the top nut screw type) and the tuner button on the non-body side.

This is the headstock.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...eaafda8ec1.jpg

These are the tuners.


https://www.realparts.com.au/catalog...80/image/7247/

A drill press is the way to do it, if you can beg, buy or borrow one.

I'm sure you could find a template from any one of the 3 x 3 style guitars here:

Electric Herald

They don't need to be a perfect matching style, just use the tuner holes as a reference. I'm confident the spacing on any of them would just fine for those Gotoh's. I have that same tuner model on an LP-style guitar. Standard fit. Nothing out of the ordinary.

If you need help on how to print out the headstock at 1:1 scale, give me hoy and I can explain it (not hard btw).

Beauty, thanks.

I reckon the PRS looks like the one I need.

I also grabbed the Les Paul 1:1 for the bridge.

Double check the scale length before drilling any bridge holes. If it's the same (24.75"), reference the 22nd fret for position, not the end of the board. If it's not the same, then ignore the Les Paul 1:1 totally.

I'd be tempted to fit the neck, hold the stop tailpiece down with a clamp at each end, fit strings (or at least the two Es), then slide the bridge into place with a small block of wood for height. Then position it so that everything lines up and intonates. Mark the mounting hole positions and then drill the mounting holes out.

Same scale, different body.

I will be checking the spacing of the holes on the template against my hardware.

I will be fitting the neck to work out the position of the template.

I will also be using the 2 outside strings to work out the centring of the template.